Posts Tagged ‘elder abuse’

In the run-up to General Election 2011 the Irish Senior Citizens Parliament today stepped up its campaign to “Support Older People”.

Máiréad Hayes, CEO of the Parliament outlined the five tenets of the campaign:

Support Older Peoples Income

Support Universal Health Care

Support the Eradication of Elder Abuse

Support Positive Ageing

Support Older People in the Community

The ISCP has distributed thousands of Election Campaign sheets to its members & are encouraging them to actively engage with all candidates from all political parties to “Support Older People”. We have organised a number of meetings around the country enabling Older People to engage with the Election candidates, thus ensuring that the “Voice Of The Elderly” is heard.

The Irish Senior Citizens Parliament condemns the latest scandal of Elder Abuse against Older People and reiterates the call made on that programme by its CEO Mairead Hayes that there is an urgent need for statutory regulation and licencing of this area of care for very vulnerable Older People.

The old and vulnerable must be protected and its time to stop the scandal and start bringing Ireland into the 21st Century.

The Irish Senior Citizens’ Parliament’s Limerick meeting with European and Local Election candidates took place on 19 May 2009 in the Best Western Pery’s Hotel. Candidates from the South Euro Constituency and Limerick local electoral areas were invited.
The meeting was attended by three European Candidates, Kathy Sinnott MEP (Independent), Senator Dan Boyle (Green Party), and Dr. Alexander Stafford (Independent).

The day began with a presentation on Elder Abuse by Julie Linwood, Senior Case Worker (Elder Abuse) in with the HSE in Limerick. The presentation covered all aspects of Elder Abuse using recent research on the topic and explained Elder Abuse and what it means to the average older person. This presentation focused on several headings including;

What is Elder Abuse?

Incidence?

Types of Elder Abuse?

How to recognise if Abuse could be occurring?

How might you learn about Abuse?

Where can you advise people to turn to?

Barriers to helping?

Julie’s presentation was followed by a very interesting Q&A session with many contributions from those present.

Kathy Sinnott MEP spoke about the demographics pointing to the increasing number of older people in Europe, with Ireland as the exception. She also spoke about healthy aging as well as the wisdom & experience of age. She emphasised her work for carers at a European level.

Senator Dan Boyle spoke about how Ireland had changed as a society, the growth of individualism & his support for community & advocacy groups.

Questions to the candidates focussed on universal health care, the withdrawal of the medical card, proper pension provision and protection for private pensions.
The meeting was later joined by 5 local candidates, Derek Mulcahy (Labour), Cathal McCarthy (Independent), Tom Shortt (Labour), Elena Secas (Labour) and James Nix (Green Party).

The meeting provided an opportunity to engage with the candidates on issues that affect the elderly. Topics covered included: medical cards, a Senior Citizens Forum, poor public transport, intergenerational living, mental health, the role of community centres & groups as well as anti-social behaviour.

The meeting was chaired by Máiréad Hayes, the Parliament’s CEO. It was attended by representatives from local Probus and Active Retirement groups as well as Lauren Quinn Taylor, the ISCP Policy officer.
Apologies were received from Colm Burke MEP, Brian Crowley MEP, Seán Kelly, Ned O’Keeffe TD, Senator Alan Kelly and Cllr. Toiréasa Ferris.

In the run-up to the European & Local elections, the Irish Senior Citizens Parliament is organising a series of meetings around the country.

The meetings’ topics will centre around three main themes all of which are of paramount importance to Older People:

Elder Abuse

Communicating Europe & the European Elections

Local Elections

The meetings will be in the following locations:

North West Constituency: There are two meetings, one inthe Salthill Hotel, Galway on 13th May 2009 at 1.30pm. The other is in the Plougastel Court Centre, Westport on 14thMay 2009 at 11.30am.

South Constituency: There are three meetings, one in the Best Western Pery’s Hotel, Limerick on 19th May 2009. There were 2 others in Cork on May 11.

East Constituency: Meeting in Dundalk on 20th May 2009 in the Carroll Mead Hall at 2.00pm.

Dublin Constituency: There are two meetings in Dublin on 21st May 2009, a morning meeting at 11.30am and an afternoon meeting at 2.oopm. Both will be in the European Parliament Office, Molesworth Street

We will produce an Election Manifesto which will be sent to all candidates and Political Parties outlining the needs of Older People.

It is important at this critical time for Older People that we have a large turnout and, therefore, we ask that you would encourage your friends to come along.

Please notify dorlores@seniors.ie regarding the EU meeting/s you would like to attend.

Local Elections

At each meeting time will be allocated for Local Election candidates standing in Galway City, Westport, Dundalk and Limerick City Electoral Areas.

Cork Elder Abuse workshop

There were 20 members of the division present at the Cork workshop. What was interesting to note about this meeting was that for many of the Older People present they were unfamiliar with the term elder abuse and were very interested in the idea. The discussion included a run through of what was considered Elder Abuse and members of the group felt very enthused that this was an issue they wanted to create awareness on, as a result they made a note to include a section in their newsletter on this topic.

An information pack was distributed to the group by the senior case social worker present. This information included the contact information for the Elder Abuse social workers in the area along with information on how to spot the signs of Elder Abuse.

What is the ISCP?

The Irish Senior Citizens' Parliament is a representative organisation of Older People in Ireland.
The Parliament is a non-partisan political organisation working to promote the views of older people in policy development and decision-making.
The Parliament is run by older volunteers who are elected annually at the Annual Parliament Meeting by delegates from affiliated organisations. The ISCP currently has 400 affiliated organisations whose memberships combine to a total of 100,000 individuals.
This membership means the ISCP has a genuine mandate to be the Voice of Older People in Ireland.

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ISCP Objectives:

To be a strong voice representing older people and their needs at international, national and local level.
To promote inter-generational solidarity.
To work through the existing affiliated organisations to ensure better co-ordination of policies and activities whilst ensuring that the affiliated groups retain their own autonomy.
To work for improvement in the quality of life of Older People.
To develop solidarity with organisations working to improve the quality of life of Older People.
To represent Older People’s issues to Government.